


Show me the stars.

by IAmTheNightman98



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, I’m terrible at tagging, Lesbian AU, age gap, background branjie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-07 15:08:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20311516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmTheNightman98/pseuds/IAmTheNightman98
Summary: Trixie is a planetarium tour guide, who makes up the facts as she goes along.Katya is an astrophysicist who takes the tour with the intention of calling her out, but doesn’t.





	1. Chapter 1

Trixie sighs as the gaggle of elementary kids start to screech when she dims the lights, plunging them into darkness. She waits for the teachers to regain control of the room, and nods politely whilst they apologise, but she knows it’s going to be a few minutes before the kids settle. 

It’s the same story every day. 

But on the plus side, it usually means she can shave five minutes off the end of her presentation. Ten minutes, if one of them needs the bathroom half way through.

“Good morning kids,” Trixie says, with as much enthusiasm as her slightly hungover self will allow. “My name is Trixie Mattel and I’ll be your tour guide today. Please remember that there is no eating or drinking in the planetarium. Now, raise your hand if you’ve ever seen a star.”

-x- 

The door to the break room slams shut behind her. 

“I swear to god, I’m quitting tomorrow,” she groans. 

Pearl scoffs. “Bitch, you say that every day.”

“I know, but this time I mean it.”

This isn’t how Trixie pictured her life would work out when she moved to LA the moment she graduated college. Like every other hopeful out there, she was going to be a star. She thought she’d at least have a recurring role on a sitcom by now. But gradually, as her savings account has drained, acting classes had been switched for shifts at the makeup counter in the mall. The agent that she’d hired became a luxury that she was no longer able to afford. She’d taken a job at the planetarium because she figured it was the closest thing to acting that she could find, but, God, she fucking hates kids. 

Her colleagues are the only thing about the job that she actually enjoys. She’d gotten the job through her roommate Kim and became friendly with the other pretty quickly. She’s never been one to shy away from social situations, especially not at work. 

In the break room, anything goes. 

Last week, their boss, Brooke, had pulled Trixie into the office to give her a lecture on ‘why we leave our personal lives at home’ when she realised that half of the tours started late one morning because her guides had been too busy grilling Trixie about the hickey on her neck from her Tinder date to keep an eye on the time. Honestly, that talk had gone in one ear and straight out of the other. She figured that it was pretty hypocritical, coming from the woman who’s almost definitely banging the chick who works in the gift shop. 

“Trix’, you’ll like this,” Pearl tells her, beckoning her over. “When Violet was working the public telescopes last night, some old couple asked her to point them towards Ursa Major.”

Violet laughs loudly, “like I know where that fucker is.”

“What did you do?” Trixie smirks. 

When their job amounts to little more than following a script and flicking the lights on and off at the right time, they all know how stressful it can be when they get asked a specific question. 

Violet shrugs, “I just pointed upwards. What else was I supposed to do?”

-x- 

After lunch, Trixie is leading the ‘Moons of the Solar System’ tour that is open to the public. On the one hand, the ratio of children to adults on these tours is always much lower, so that's a positive, but on the other hand, members of the public come with their own set of problems. 

There’s the entitled moms, who think that their kids should get to climb up on the displays. There’s the know it all dads, who like to jump in with a ‘well, actually’ every once in a while. There’s always a group of tourists who never listen to the ‘no flash photography’ instruction at the beginning. But every once in a while, there’s someone interesting or quirky or different, that makes her shifts just about bearable. 

Pearl is collecting ticket stubs at the entrance to the planetarium dome, and gives Trixie a nod when the last members of the audience have filtered in. As she leaves, she closes the doors behind her and sets the lights so that they begin to dim. 

“Good afternoon, ladies and gents. I’m Trixie Mattel and I’ll be your tour guide today. Please remember that there is no eating or drinking in the auditorium. Now, raise your hand if you’ve ever seen the moon.”

She rattles through the opening section about Earth’s moons fairly quickly. It’s the most boring part of the script by far, since even young kids will already know this by now. With feigned enthusiasm, she asks her audience participation questions about solar and lunar eclipses. Once she’s finished, someone raises their hand to ask a question. She prays it’s something she knows the answer to. 

“When’s the next lunar eclipse?” 

Trixie shifts uncomfortably. The woman’s blue eyes are piercing, waiting for her to answer. 

“Um, some time next month. You’ll have to check out our website for further details.”

The woman nods, seemingly satisfied. But she’s barely into her segment on Jupiter’s four largest moons when the woman speaks up again. 

“Which space probe has travelled the furthest?”

She has to use all of her willpower to force herself not to roll her eyes. The Lord really is trying to test her today. Quickly, in her head, she rattles through all of the names of the space probes that she knows, trying to pick the one that sounds right. 

“Um, Galileo,” Trixie guesses.

The woman smiles, but says nothing. 

“And how far away is-“

Trixie has to cut her off. 

“I’m sorry ma’am, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave all questions until the end.”

The woman apologises, but it doesn’t make Trixie feel any less on edge. 

The thing is, Trixie knows that he answers are wrong. She knows that she’s making up the majority of her script on the spot. And she knows that the parents here are lapping it up, planning to go home and brag to their book club friends about how their kids enjoy educational pastimes, because they’re just so damn gifted. 

But this woman. Who’s teetering in skyscraper heels and watching her like a hawk. Who’s nodding along with the presentation, smirking softly to herself, like she knows something that everybody else doesn’t. Trixie is sure that this woman knows that everything she’s saying is bullshit.

Trixie sets up the projectors to play a short clip showing the names and sizes of some of the solar system's biggest moons, then positions herself in the back corner of the room. Then, as if this woman isn’t odd enough already, she starts to look up at the dome. But she doesn’t look up like all the rest of the parents, with a semi-interested expression and frequent glances to her watch. She looks up in awe, like this is the greatest thing she’s ever seen in her life. Like nothing could bring her to look away, not even for a moment. 

And it’s funny, because Trixie is as captivated by the woman as the woman is by the moons. 

At the end of the presentation, Trixie is dreading the asking the audience for questions, because she knows whose hand is going to be the first in the air. So, she drags out the end of the show for as long as possible, praying that she overruns. When Pearl pokes her head through the door to give her the two minute warning for the start of Kim’s next group, she’s so relieved, she could kiss her. 

“And that’s all we have time for today folks. Please exit via the gift shop on your right. Have a lovely day!”

She makes a beeline for the door, but of course, the woman follows her. 

“Hold on, I didn’t get to ask my questions,” she smirks coyly. 

Trixie sighs and gestures to the edge of the corridor so they can stand out of the way of the crowds. 

“Look, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing but-“

The woman holds up her hands in defence. “I’m not playing any games, I just wanted to know-“

“Save it,” Trixie cuts her off, and she really hopes she’s right because if not she’s just been very, very rude to a curious audience member. But then the woman grins and she knows she isn’t wrong. Trixie sighs. “Are you going to tell my boss?”

The woman shrugs and Trixie’s eyes widen. 

“Look, I’m sorry if your kid didn’t enjoy the show or whatever. I’ll get you tickets to the next-“

“Ew, gross” the woman cuts her off by shaking her head, “I don’t have a kid.”

“Oh. Then why are you at a kids planetarium show?”

The woman laughs. Her teeth are perfectly straight and perfectly white, not that Trixie cares. 

“My niece watched a show here last week, but the new facts that she learned turned out to be the biggest load of garbage I’ve ever heard.”

Trixie ought to be embarrassed, but really, she’s just annoyed. Why can’t this woman just leave a bad review on trip advisor like a normal person?

“Are you some kind of space expert or something?”

The woman takes a business card out of her purse and hands it over. 

_ Prof. Yekaterina P Zamolodchikova. _

_ Astrophysics Department - UCLA.  _

“Jesus,” Trixie mumbles. 

“No, Katya,” the woman replies, holding out her hand for Trixie to shake. 

Trixie doesn’t shake her hand.

“Please don’t tell my boss, I really need this job.”

“Maybe if you really needed it, you’d be less terrible at it.”

Trixie shrugs. “That’s fair.”

Katya’s gaze sharpens. “What you’re doing isn’t right. Kids come here to learn and you’re just making shit up as you please.”

Trixie shifts on the balls of her feet. It would be easier to just let Brooke tear her a new asshole than have to put up with this. Maybe if she tells her before Katya has the chance, she’ll get to keep her job. 

Trixie looks at her watch and sighs. “Okay, if you’re going to tell her will you at least tell her tomorrow, so that I get paid for the rest of the day.”

Katya looks Trixie up and down, then grins devilishly. “I’m not going to tell her.”

“You aren’t?”

“No.”

Trixie blinks rapidly, then stares at her, unaware of what they’re supposed to do now. Then, Katya gestures to the business card in her hand. 

“See the address? I want you to meet me there at eight. I’m going to teach you what you need to know.”

Trixie narrows her eyes. “You’re a college professor and you want to teach third grade physics to a terrible planetarium tour guide…”

Katya shrugs. “Or I could tell your boss that you can’t do your job properly.”

“Fine. God damn it. Whatever. I’ll be there.”

Trixie had been warned of the unsavoury side of life before she moved to LA, but had never thought she would be blackmailed into being educated.

She looks down at the card in her hand, but when she looks back up, Katya is already walking away. 

“How will I know where to find you?”

“You’ll know,” she calls back over her shoulder. 

“This had better not be a trap so that you can kidnap and murder me,” Trixie shouts after her, earning her a few uncomfortable glances from nearby parents.

“No promises,” Katya tells her, then leaves the building.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katya is surprised to learn that her usually intelligent niece has picked up some very incorrect facts about space.

As the minute hand ticks closer to the hour, Katya can tell she’s losing the interest of her class.

First, there’s the fidgeting. The squeak of the foldable chairs in the lecture theatre as students shuffle, anxiously waiting to go and eat their lunch or smoke a joint or get back in bed, or whatever it is that these kids do when they leave her presence.

Then, there's the rustling of bags as students start to put away their belongings. Their calculators that they think they won’t need again and their empty water bottles. And once their desks are clear, there’s the quiet mumbling from the back of the room, where the students think she can’t hear them. There’s the anxious glances to the clock that say fuck, is she really going to run for the full two hours again.

The funny thing is, students will fight tooth and nail to get onto her modules. The undergraduate class that she teaches is renowned within the academic physics community as the most comprehensive introduction to large-scale structure of matter in the universe. Students have to submit an application to get onto the heavily oversubscribed course, but it seems that after the first months, the lure of drinking and partying and fucking overcomes their once held passion to learn.

It’s frustrating beyond belief to see, but it’s the same thing year in and year out, and there’s nothing Katya can do to change it.

-x-

Despite the fact that she’s exhausted from standing on her feet in the lecture hall all day, Katya arrives at her sisters’ house for their every-other-weekly family dinner with fifteen minutes to spare. Well, family dinner, if family dinner means Katya showing up at her younger sister and brother-in-laws middle class, suburban house to be lectured about how she needs to find a wife and settle down whilst simultaneously watching them struggle to parent their two children.

She just about manages to slot her Audi on the driveway, between Zac’s SUV and Nadia’s minivan, then takes a moment to pause as she waits for the soft top convertible hood to slot itself back into place. One final glance in the interior mirror to check her lipstick and run her fingers through her hair, and she’s ready for the evening.

She walks up to knock on the front door, but before she reaches the threshold, the door swings open and her five year old nice comes hurtling towards her.

“Woah, kid, you trying to kill me?” Katya laughs as she lifts Grace off the floor and above her head. She twirls her gently, then sets her back down on the ground to greet her sister, who stands in the doorway with her infant son in her arms.

Katya kisses Nadia softly on the cheek, then strokes Benjie’s hand with her knuckle and tells her that he’s grown, because that’s apparently what you’re supposed to do when you see someone’s baby. Katya finds it amusing that if you were to give the same compliment to an adult, it wouldn’t be taken well.

“Are you tired?” Nadia asks, scanning Katya’s face. “You look tired.”

Charming.

Katya shoots her sister a warning glare, which is met with a playful nudge, then allows Grace to drag her by the hand into the sitting room.

“Aunty Katya, I made you a picture today,” she beams as she shows Katya to the coffee table.

The drawing depicts a red planet, on fire, with two moons, one larger than the other. The drawing is labelled, but the scrawled handwriting practically illegible.

“I think this might be the greatest piece of art I’ve ever seen, sweetie,” Katya tells her, allowing her to sit on her lap on the couch. “Are you going to tell me what these words say?”

Grace rolls her eyes, as though it’s a burden for her to have to read to her obviously illiterate aunt.

“This is Mars,” she tells her, pointing to the planet. “And this is Damien and Phineas,” she says as she points to the moons.

“Oh, sweetie, do you mean Deimos and Phobos?”

Grace crinkles her brow in confusion. “The lady at the space museum told us the moons’ names are Damien and Phineas.” She points back to her drawing at the flames, “this is the fire that makes Mars red, because it’s really hot.”

“Oh,” Katya says, smiling affectionately at the second misremembered fact, but she knows that when it comes to her niece, it’s unwise to attempt to correct her twice. “Did you go to the space museum today?”

“Yes. We had a class trip to the planenta- the planetatari-“

“The planetarium?”

She nods her head and grins. “Yeah. And I told the lady I want to be a spacewoman just like you.”

“No, honey, I’m not a-“ she hesitates and reconsiders. “That’s nice.”

-x-

As they’re getting ready for dinner, the incorrect space facts from Grace keep flowing, and Katya grows suspicious of the skills of the tour guide who has managed to fill her niece’s head with such garbage.

“Nadia,” she says under her breath, whilst Grace is occupied entertaining her baby brother, “what kind of stupid ass planetarium did Gracie’s teachers take her to? You wouldn’t believe the amount of bullshit they’ve made her believe.”

Nadia rolls her eyes. “Calm down, Kat, we can’t all be space experts like you.”

“Astrophysics,” Katya corrects. “And it doesn’t take an astrophysicist to tell you that Pluto is a dwarf planet.”

“It’s not a big deal, she probably just remembered it wrong. You know what kids are like.”

Katya sighs, because firstly, she very deliberately makes no attempt to learn the behaviours children. But secondly, because, whilst she doesn’t know children, she knows her nice. Grace is smart, and she can repeat what she’s heard like a parrot. Katya had learnt this the hard way when she’d had to explain to Nadia why her three year old daughter had said the c-word. But what this means is that if Grace is telling Katya incorrect facts, it’s because that’s how she learnt them, and this isn’t something that Katya is going to let go lightly.

-x-

By process of elimination, Katya figures out which planetarium had been the venue of her niece’s class trip. All it takes is a quick google search and a few phone calls, and she has the address. Ironically, she realises that the planetarium is the same one that she used to visit as a child. The same place where her love for space began.

When they were children, Katya, Nadia and their next door neighbours would be given summer passes to the museum and visit as often as they could. By the end of each school break Katya could recite almost word for word each one of the planetarium tours. Each one was filled with facts and demonstrations and light shows. She’d been mesmerised. Entranced by the endless possibilities that space has to offer. There’s a pang of nostalgia in her chest as she remembers the simplicity of those days, and it hurts her to know that other children, her niece included, are being deprived of the same experience.

She visits the museum on a Wednesday, after her lunch break. She always keeps her Wednesday afternoons free for planning lectures and marking assignments, but Operation Planetarium Investigation has to take precedence.

The tour starts off well enough. The tour guide, who appears to be in her early twenties, introduces the group to the tour with a cheery smile and interacts with the children with only minor traces of contempt in her voice. Katya can hardly blame her for that. But at the end of the first section, Katya takes the opportunity to ask her first question. A test, to see what this woman actually knows.

When the woman tells her that the next lunar eclipse is next month instead of in two years time, which is the real answer, Katya understands that she’s dealing with someone who knows very little of what she’s talking about.

Katya’s questions keep coming, and so do the woman’s arbitrary answers. The woman is clearly uncomfortable, so much so that she asks Katya to save her questions until the end.

At first, Katya is frustrated. She wants this woman to lose her job. She has no right to fuck with the education of children in the way that she’s doing. Maybe it hits a little closer to home for Katya, because Grace has been affected, or because of her special interest in all things cosmic, but she’s pissed and she wants this woman to suffer.

But then, the dome lights up, projecting planets and moons around the walls, above her head and in every different direction. And suddenly she’s nine years old again. Holding her sisters hand and pointing up at the ceiling and whispering all the facts that she remembers from her science books at home. One time the tour guide had given her a bookmark with the planets of the solar system as a reward for her enthusiasm. She keeps the bookmark in a frame on the wall in her office, right beside her degree certificates.

She can see the children losing interest as their parents play on their smartphones and she realises in that moment that getting the woman who runs the tours fired is not going to fix anything. The museum would just replace her with another, equally disinterested college kid with a script. If she wants to fix anything, she has to get to the heart of the problem.

So, at the end of the tour, when the woman tries to make a swift escape, Katya pursues her.

“Hold on, I didn’t get to ask my questions.”

She sees a myriad of emotions flicker across the woman’s face. Frustration. Annoyance. A hint of concern as she realises that she’s most likely busted. The woman ushers Katya to the edge of the corridor, away from the prying eyes of parents and their kids.

The woman narrows her eyes and Katya is grateful that she’s wearing her heels so that they’re the same height. Almost.

“Look, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but-“

Oh, no. Katya won’t let her out of this that easily.

“I’m not playing any games,” Katya starts to lie, “I just wanted to know-“

But seemingly, the woman didn’t come to play either.

“Save it. Are you going to tell my boss?”

For a moment, Katya enjoys watching the poor woman squirm. She likes the way her eyes widen as she realises how much trouble she’s going to be in. The way that she feigns indifference, but fidgets on the balls of her heels. But then when she pleads softly with Katya that she doesn’t tell her boss, Katya starts to feel a pang of guilt. Then when she tells the woman that she is terrible at her job, she fees worse.

In a spur of the moment decision, she decides to invite the tour guide to the university campus so that she can teach her about the universe. Katya is desperate to reinvigorate these lifeless tours so that they can become something akin to what she’d experienced as a child, so much so that she has no moral obligation to sort of, maybe, blackmailing the woman.

It’s only once the woman leaves that Katya realises she never asked the woman’s name.

-x-

When Katya gets home, she conveniently forgets the stack of papers on her desk that are waiting to be marked and heads for the guest bedroom, which is where she keeps all of the toys for when her niece stays over.

She pulls out the diorama of the solar system that they’d once made, as well as various books, and an encyclopedia that Grace is definitely too young for. Then, she heads for the kitchen and takes out pieces of fruit in varying sizes. Logically, Katya knows that she should not reasonably be this excited, but the idea of helping a tour guide write a better planetarium show seems to ignited a childlike enthusiasm about her.

Even though she’d told the woman to meet her at eight, Katya arrives back at the university at seven thirty and makes a start of setting up her things. She chooses the biggest lecture theatre for the size of the projection screen, because Katya doesn’t do things by halves. At five minutes to eight, Katya heads for the entrance to the physics department and waits for her guest to arrive.

The woman is fifteen minutes late, and Katya has almost resigned herself to the fact that she’s been stood up, until she sees a gaudy pink VW bug roll into the parking lot. Recalling the woman’s bright pink fingernails that matched her lipstick, Katya smirks in satisfaction.

Before she’s even crossed the car park, the woman is checking the time on her phone.

“Can we make this quick? I have somewhere to be tonight.”

Katya sighs. “If you would’ve arrived on time, we could’ve finished sooner.” From the look on the woman’s face, she couldn’t care less. “Are you going to tell me your name?”

“Trixie,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself to stave off the chill in the light breeze. “Can we go inside now?”

“Sure.”

-x-

Trixie follows Katya as she leads her through the university halls, and Katya can’t quite put her finger on it, but something seems off. Trixie seems on edge, which is a stark contrast to how she’d been at the museum. Even when she’d been faced with the possibility of losing her job, she managed to keep an air of calm about her. But now, she’s answering Katya’s questions about the drive here in her ugly pink car with short, one word responses.

Katya thinks about asking her if she’s alright, or if she wants to rearrange for a different night, but decides to hold off for now.

They’ve barely made it through the door of the lecture theatre when Trixie sighs. “Okay,” she says.

“Okay, what?” Katya asks, turning to face her.

“Okay, lets just do this.”

Then, the unexpected happens.

Trixie takes a step closer, closing the gap between them. Awkwardly, she puts one hand on Katya’s waist and one on her shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Katya asks softly.

Trixie sighs again. “If you want to lead this, then do something, if not then just relax. God, you’re so on edge for someone who initiated this.”

Katya has never been more confused, until Trixie brushes the hair off her shoulder and leans in to kiss her neck, and Katya realises exactly what’s going on. She untangles herself from Trixie and takes three steps away.

“Hold on, what do you think is happening here?”

Trixie shrugs. “We’re going to fuck and you’re not going to tell my boss about my shitty touring skills.”

Katya’s mind is running a mile a minute. Less than a minute ago she’d been ready to give an element aged lecture on the size of the universe to a grown woman, and now she’s fending off advances from that same woman, who happens to have beautiful eyes and soft gentle hands and smells like vanilla.

“How did you get that from me saying I’m going to teach you how to make your tours better?” Katya asks, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Figured it was a euphemism.”

Katya steps aside slightly so that Trixie can see the dioramas and books and fruit on her desk, and Trixie laughs. Very, very, loudly. And Katya laughs too, because even though she ought to be offended that Trixie thought her to be the type of person to blackmail a person for sex, she has to admit that the entire situation is pretty damn funny.

Trixie crosses over to the desk and scans over Katya’s supplies, then plucks a grape from the bunch and eats it.

“You’re really taking this seriously, aren’t you?” She laughs.

“Yes,” Katya tells her, “and you’ve just eaten the Earth.”

-x-

Once Trixie has had a moment to change gears from ‘about to fuck a stranger’ to ‘ready to be educated’, Katya sets about teaching her the wonders of the universe.

She starts with the basics, teaching her the correct names for the planet’s moons, various comments, and significant space probes. Trixie doesn’t seem interested in the slightest, but she’s polite and she listens well.

No, she tries to listen well between interruptions.

“The two moons of Mars orbit at different speeds, which means-“

“What am I supposed to do if a kid asks me why that happens? Or why Venus rotates backwards?”

Katya sighs. “Well if you let me finish, I’ll tell you.”

She’s barely midway through her explanation about how the speed of an object in orbit is dependent on it’s height, not it’s mass, when Trixie interrupts her again. But Katya doesn’t mind, because interruption with questions is at least better than indifference.

As Katya talks though the materials in front of her, she cant help but think about Trixie’s earlier proposition.

Trixie is undeniably attractive. She may be quite a few years younger, which isn’t something Katya usually goes for, but if she’s as loud in bed as she is when she laughs, then Katya could see them getting along nicely. She almost wishes that it wasn’t too late to backtrack and take Trixie up on her offer. But sure, teaching her about the solar system and trying not to choke on air whilst she drops blueberries into her mouth is fine too.

After around an hour, Katya decides to call it a night. She hopes that Trixie has enough new information to make her tours a little better for the kids. And even if she doesn’t remember what she’s learned, she knows not to lie. Katya is ready to let her exciting, albeit temporary break from her real life come its natural conclusion, but apparently, Trixie has other plans.

“Same time next week?” She asks on the walk back to the parking lot.

“Really? You want to come back?”

“Bitch, I have like four more of these tours that I’ve been half assing my way through. If one suddenly gets better than the rest then someone’s going to notice.”

Katya is definitely not going to turn down the chance to spend more time with Trixie, but she decides to play it cool.

“Um, sure. Yeah. I’ll have to check my schedule. Maybe I should get your number?”

Trixie smirks knowingly as she holds out her hand for Katya’s phone. Once she’s finished, she hands the phone back and flutters her eyelashes softly.

“See you next week, professor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know whether you’re liking this fic, either here or over on tumblr. 
> 
> Also, I half assed proof reading this chapter and it shows.

**Author's Note:**

> I had the idea for this fic months ago but never wrote it, so I hope it turns out as well as expected. 
> 
> You can find concept art over on my tumblr @youre-a-kite
> 
> Also, if you’re a fan of lesbian au meets sci-fi, check out my fic ‘Artemis’, which also happens to be about space. 
> 
> Don’t forget to let me know what you think!


End file.
